Part 25 (2/2)

”I never,” said Betty, looking around at her white-faced chums wearily, ”spent such a terrible night in my life. How is the patient?” she added, taking up the subject that had not left their minds for a minute. ”Who was in there last?”

”I,” said Grace, brus.h.i.+ng out her hair, listlessly. ”He is still asleep.”

That report continued good all morning, and it was almost noon before the ragged, unbelievably unkempt old man on the bed opened his eyes.

The girls had been looking forward to, yet dreading, this minute. It had been decided that only one of them should be in the room with him when he awoke, but the rest were hovering close to the door ready to give a.s.sistance if it should become necessary.

But they need not have worried. The magic of his long sleep, together with the glad news he had heard the night before, seemed to have transformed the man overnight to his old gentle self.

To be sure, he was amazed at his strange surroundings, and looked uncomprehendingly into Betty's face as she bent compa.s.sionately over him.

But all he said was:

”I declare, this is all very strange, young lady--very strange. Would you mind--er--telling me where I am?”

At the tone, even more than the words, the girls felt a wild desire to shout aloud their relief. For the tone was the same, gentle, polite one that they remembered hearing that day when the little man had entertained them in his cabin in the woods.

Then Betty, as gently as she knew how, told him a little of what had happened to him, and the girls could see by the surprise on his face that he had no recollection whatever of the matters of which she was speaking.

”I declare it is most strange--most strange,” he declared when she had finished, adding as he looked down and plucked distastefully at his tattered s.h.i.+rt: ”And this is the result of my--er--temporary aberration, is it? Ah, but I remember,” he sat up suddenly, a gleam of fear in his eyes. ”It was when I read of the death of my boys. Something snapped in my brain, I think. You say”--he turned to Betty, grasping her hand imploringly--”you say that my sons are well--that they are coming to me?”

”Yes,” said Betty soothingly, pressing him back upon the pillow. ”They are well and safe and will be with you soon--in a few days, perhaps.”

”Ah,” said the little man, submitting to Betty's touch, a happy smile on his lips, ”that is good. That is very--very--good--” and with a sigh like a tired child's, he fell asleep again!

”Did you hear what he said?” whispered Betty, her eyes s.h.i.+ning as she tip-toed from the room, closed the door softly behind her and faced her awed and incredulous chums. ”He's well, girls. He's completely sane again.”

”It's a miracle,” said Mollie breathlessly.

And so it came to pa.s.s that some little time later four good-looking young fellows, recently in the service of the greatest country on the earth, and one of them still wearing his regimentals, saw a rather unexpected sight as they swung down the path toward Wild Rose Lodge.

On the porch sat an elderly, contented looking man, clad in garments that would easily have accommodated two men of his size--garments belonging to Mollie's Uncle John, and seated about him in att.i.tudes of lazy comfort were four young girls.

These young girls--who were, at least from the standpoint of the four young men, exceedingly good to look upon, were engaged in doing some sort of fancy work. All but one of them, that is; for the fourth, a girl with wavy brown hair and bright brown eyes, pink cheeks, and a dream of a mouth, was reading to the elderly man who sat in the chair of state.

”Gee, Allen,” whispered one of the tall youths to the one who still wore the uniform of his country's service, ”I feel as though we were crabbing your act. Can't we fellows do the disappearing act----”

But just at the moment the girl with the brown eyes and the pink cheeks looked up, gave one little startled cry, and dropped the book to the porch.

The other girls looked up and then followed a scene that very nearly made the temporarily forgotten and neglected old man on the porch drop out of his chair in surprise.

”Allen!” screamed the girls, all except the brown-haired, pink-cheeked one, who, for some unaccountable reason hung back behind the others. ”You perfect angel!”

”Why didn't you let us know you were coming so that we could have been prepared?”

”Oh, isn't your uniform lovely!”

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